Let’s compare my wife and my mom this Mother’s Day
Sigmund Freud came up with the idea of the Oedipal Complex, where - at best (worst?) - a son idealizes his mother. Let’s explore that this Mother’s Day, shall we? Buckle up ...
Let me tell you exactly the moment my mother ceased to be – if she ever was – my feminine ideal.
She picked me up after school one day in fourth grade, I’m walking out of class, mindlessly thinking up ways to avoid Hebrew School that afternoon. I get to the Ford Country Squire faux-wood paneled station wagon and open the door.
I came face-to-face with a monster.
“Hi!” my mother said. I started to cry. Not even kidding. I took one look at her, and I started to cry. She looked… horrible. Scary. Stuff of nightmares.
Why? Because she permed her hair. And not some relaxed, wavy-type situation. Nope. She took her normally-straight hair and wound it tighter than a stressed-out yo-yo.
“What did you do to your hair?” I asked, between sobs.
“You don’t like it?” she said.
“Waaa-aaaah,” I responded.
Now, it’s worth exploring why my mom’s perm affected me so. It seems to lend credence to the whole Freudian process. Was I “idealizing” my mother? Is that why it upset me?
Honestly, I don’t think so. I’m a relatively shallow guy to begin with, and I think the reason I was so perturbed was because I was embarrassed by the way she looked. She looked decidedly unpretty.
And I always liked the pretty girls. My first crush happened in kindergarten, and lasted all of my elementary school years. I remember complimenting her on her legs during a date at Mr. Bruno’s pizzeria when we were 10.
I can say, with full candor, I was not idealizing my mother in any way. I was idealizing, in order: 1) My crush, 2) naked women in Playboy found in my neighbor’s garage, and 3) Mrs. Furia, who I did not have for second grade despite desperately wanting to have her for second grade.
My love for hot women, in other words, was apparently seeded in me long before I knew what to do with them. (It is worth noting at this point I am not, nor have I ever been, mistaken for a “hot guy.” Never. Not once. I am, at best, “striking,” and at worst, “misshapen from nose to hips.” So my love for hot women was misguided for a long, long – long – time.)
All this seemingly disparate information leads to my objectively hot wife.
She is a green-eyed beauty who, as someone once said to her, looks like she belongs on the cover of a travel magazine for Ireland.
My mother has blue eyes and looks Russian, for lack of a better comparison.
My wife does not speak in questions.
My mother does. (“I had a tuna sandwich for lunch today?” is the way my mother makes a statement.)
I did not, in any way, marry my mother. Nope. Not in one single way.
Except for a few small details.
My mom is the keeper of the extended family flame. She’s the one who brings all the cousins together for Passover, for instance. Family is of supreme importance to my mother.
My wife, who’s nuclear family is scattershot, is also crazy about family. She’s the one who makes sure Thanksgiving is a huge affair, with distant relatives given the call to come over, if only for dessert.
My mom is big on helping people out. She’s got a big heart. She’s not one for faceless charity; when she donates clothes, for instance, she knocks on the door of the recipient. Class and status do not ring true to my mother.
My wife is a helper as well. I could list it all, but it’s just bragging. Let’s just say no one who needs goes without when she is around.
My mom has one way of doing things: Her way.
My wife has one way of doing things: Her way.
My mother is going to be slightly infuriated, but proud when she reads about this.
My wife is going to be enraged that I’m comparing her to her mother-inlaw.
I’m treading in dangerous waters here.
Bottom line is while I did not, in any way, idealize my mother, there is a small part of me that probably – and unconsciously – sought out a woman who has some of my mother’s better qualities.
Let’s just leave it at that. And Happy Mother’s Day to the both of you, and to all the moms out there. You rock.